


A Quarterly Meeting of United Chemicals & Rubber in the Year 78

by quiet_wraith



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: After the Rebellion, Corporations, Equality between bosses and workers - but not in the way you think, Friendly Coworkers, Gen, Slightly unreliable narrator, The Boss You Wish You Had, The Capitol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23909146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_wraith/pseuds/quiet_wraith
Summary: After the Rebellion, the lives of many successful industrialists change drastically. However, no force in the world can stop corporations from pursuing profits. Diana Winch, deputy head of sales of United Chemicals & Rubber, knows that all too well.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 11





	A Quarterly Meeting of United Chemicals & Rubber in the Year 78

“Have you finished with the projections I asked you to make?” The voice of the CEO sounded tinny and canned through the poor connection.

“We’re actually having a meeting about that right now,” Diana said, wishing someone else could have been dealing with Kushel instead of her. “We’ve done the preliminary work, though, and it seems that the next quarter should see drastic improvement-”

“Now that the plants in One have been rebuilt. Yes. But what are the exact numbers?”

Diana fought to keep calm. “We don’t have the exact numbers yet,” she said. “We just got the reports a few days ago, and trying to find a good time to meet is impossible. Sir, with all due respect, you are aware of our situation-”

Kushel sighed. “I am very well aware of it, which is why I take your advice instead of relying on the so-called experts they’ve foisted onto me. What does Dawker think?” He was in charge of the plants and factories in Three.

“I haven’t been able to talk to him yet, but last I checked, he was optimistic that pre-Rebellion output would soon be reached.”

“That was last week, wasn’t it? I-” The connection crackled badly, and whatever Kushel had said disappeared into static. Holding the cord in place with her hand, Diana asked him to repeat himself. “I said that Ray told me that already.” Ray had been Dawker’s boss, keeping tabs on all of the UCR’s factories and making sure quotas were being fulfilled. “Though she told me it would take another quarter, at least.”

It was hard to keep track of all of the new developments. Diana had never been the one to report to higher-ups, but the situation being what it was, even she sometimes had to. “Someone will report back after the meeting,” she said, glancing at the clock. “We only got half the documents, so we’ll need to talk it out together.”

“I’m sure they thought it was a very funny joke,” Kushel grumbled. “This is an outrage. What does Finances say? I know you got that much.”

“Milner says that the repairs in Three are costing too much.”

“And what does Dawker think?”

“I told you, we haven’t been able to meet yet. As far as I can tell, though, it will be worth it.”

Kushel sighed again. “That much is obvious. What I need to know is how much time it will take. I need to inform the shareholders. How many more weeks until pre-Rebellion output is reached?”

“I’ll need to ask Dawker.” She took out a pen and paper from her pocket. Diana held the receiver with her head against her shoulder, put the paper against the wall, and struggled to write down the question with the pen, which was impossible to grip properly. “You have our last report, though.”

“That was before the expansion in One was decided on. Not to mention that I’ve got a Depuration tribunal breathing down my neck, so I spent days just on damage control. It’s still touch-and-go at the moment.” The Depuration tribunals harassed everyone worse than the Inter-District Committee had, as its tentacles could reach anyone instead of being limited to so-called major criminals.

If Kushel was having to deal with one, that was bad news. He was supposed to be the temporary CEO for as long as Kosten, the old CEO, was unavailable. “Has Kosten told you who she’d pick if you become unavailable?”

“Yes. Barnards.”

“The CFO with the drinking problem?” Diana asked incredulously.

“Who else, then? Everyone already got promoted into the stratosphere. I know Barnards is already stressed beyond his capability to function, but there’s nobody else. Now, there are a few things I need to hear back from you. Are you writing this down?”

“Yes,” Diana said, getting ready to write.

Kushel rattled off a long list of questions. “That’s it,” he finally said as Diana put the pen and paper back into her pocket. “Tell Kosten to get in touch with Barnards. You have the phone book, right?”

“Of course.”

“It’s just a precaution, but with the climate being the way it is, it never hurts to be too careful. I think we’re almost out of time now.” Diana glanced at the clock. They had half a minute left. “Take care, deputy head of sales.”

“You too, interim CEO.”

Kushel laughed. “I’ll try to meet Kosten next week. Can you tell her that?”

“Of course.”

“Have a good day.”

“You, too.”

The line clicked, and a tinny voice began to speak. _This was a monitored and recorded call from Townhome Correctional Facility..._ Diana hung up the phone and let the next inmate approach.

“Board meeting?” Karls asked jokingly.

Diana nodded. “Something like that.”

“You industrialists are crazy.” She picked up the receiver and began to dial, and Diana began the walk back to her cell. Inmates generally separated themselves by neighbourhood of origin, but there was now another gang in Townhome - the so-called Games criminals. While those unfortunate enough to be sentenced by IDC courts before their disbanding to five years or more ended up in the Supermax, the personnel of United Chemicals & Rubber, which was now a shade of what it had been thanks to de-monopolization, were all stuck in Townhome, a medium-security complex.

The prison may have been medium-security, but there was a minimum-security wing where inmates could be transferred for good behaviour, and that was where Diana lived, and would probably live for the next six years. Conditions there were the exact same as in gen pop, except that they could work outside the prison if they wanted to and they only had to have their doors locked at night. Diana had heard it was the other way around in minimum-security prisons, with conditions being basically the same in medium but with restrictions. That made about as much sense to her as everything that had to do with her imprisonment.

“Hey, Winch,” Ray said as she entered their block. “How’s Kushel doing?”

“Same as always. Depuration board’s breathing down his neck.” She walked into Ray’s cell. On the top bunk, another inmate, a former drug dealer, was reading a book. Once, Diana would have been revolted by the mere thought of being in the same place as a person like that, but she was used to it by now. “You ready for the meeting?”

“Hopefully.” Ray’s table was covered in papers and folders, and the cell was full of boxes of files. Diana had her own cell, and it was even more full, as there was a limit to how much stuff Ray could keep in her cell without her roommate flipping a lid. “I just need to get that report the internal security head gave me two days ago. It was somewhere here.”

“Is that the one lying on the floor?” Starr said from her vantage point. Ray bent down and picked it up.

“Oh. Thanks!”

“You’re welcome, manager.” Much more insulting epithets had been hurled at Kosten until she had punched someone (who had committed a double homicide) in the face, breaking her hand in the process. After that, they had been too busy laughing to insult her. 

The UCR had factories in the Capitol, which meant that former employers and former employees mingled together in Townhome. Diana doubted that this was the equality between bosses and workers the far left harped on about.

Diana remembered something else they needed to do. “We need to drag the legal staff out of the library,” she said. Being disbarred hadn’t prevented them from doing research and writing briefs for many of the others. “And doesn’t Whitesmith have a class right now?” He had been the head of the legal department, and now taught law to other inmates.

“That’s what deputies are for.” Ray flipped through the file and made some notations in pencil. “You want to go now?”

“Have fun,” Starr called down from her bunk. 

“We’ll try.” Ray took an empty box and began to toss files and papers into it. “Where’s your stuff?” she asked Diana.

“It’s all packed, I just need to get it.”

Ray looked at the chaos of the table. “Just get it now. Maybe I’ll be done by then.”

Diana’s cell was not too far down the corridor. Her neighbour, a former civil servant in the Ministry of Education, waved to her as she approached. “Now if only my boss still needed me,” Brine sighed wistfully.

“If your boss still needed you, you wouldn’t be able to get a second of rest,” Diana grumbled. “You wouldn’t believe how he orders me around.”

Brine leaned against her door frame. “At least you’ll have a job to come back to.”

“At least you can lie around and get some sleep for once in your life. I never thought I’d have to worry about deadlines in prison of all places.” Diana walked into her cell and picked up her file folder, which was crammed almost to bursting. Brine followed her in.

“What sleep? I don’t know about you, but it’s impossible to sleep in this place.”

Diana held the folder under her arm. “Look,” she said, trying to control her temper. “You’re getting out of here next year. I’m sure there will be a place for you.” She left her cell, ushering Brine out as well.

“There better be,” Brine muttered before retreating to her cell. Her cellmate, one of the infamous doctors from the Institute of Genetic Research who had carried out horrific human experiments, didn’t even look up from her medical journal. Despite having been sentenced to twenty years and stripped of her license, Fisher still thought she’d get her career back somehow. Diana doubted that. Nobody outside showed the slightest interest in any of the doctors.

Ray was already stepping out of her cell, and Diana scrambled to join her, trying to get rid of the mental image of Fisher being allowed to treat anyone (even the prison infirmary refused to hire the doctors, even to wash bedpans). Diana and Ray went to the library, Ray visibly struggling to carry the box but refusing offers of help. Two middle-aged inmates studying for the bar told them that the deputy head of the legal department had already left, so they went straight to the shared rec room.

Another perk given to those who behaved well was access to the shared rec room. Townhome was a complex, with two separate facilities for women and men and a shared building for administrative offices, punishment cells, and, thanks to the recent reforms, workshops and a rec room that could be used by all inmates. The common inmates used the rec room to meet up with friends and significant others and plan various deals, as did two of the former IGR researchers, who were married. The industrialists, however, used it as a place to hold meetings.

The two of them walked down the corridor and showed their badges to a CO, who scanned them and unlocked the gate. The prison staff treated them well, as they always stayed out of trouble and were respectful. After that, the rec room was in sight. Kosten was already there, sitting on a couch and doing paperwork. So was Dawker. He looked exhausted.

“We’re here,” Ray said, putting her box on the table and sighing with relief. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Some sort of holdup,” Dawker huffed. “Someone’s being searched, so nobody can get through.” 

Someone changed the channel on the television in the corner. Diana wasn’t sure why the unfamiliar man parked in front of it now wanted to watch a chess match, but it was better than reruns of foreign shows. “Kushel says we need to discuss the repairs in Three,” she said to Kosten, “you need to talk to Barnards because a Depuration tribunal is breathing down Kushel’s neck, and we need to know how soon pre-Rebellion output will be reached given the expansion in One.” She dug out the paper from her pocket. “And that’s not all,” she added, handing it to Kosten.

Kosten’s eyebrows met her hairline as she read. “From where does he think I’ll find all these records?”

“He says he’ll meet you next week.”

“And hand over a bookcase’s worth of books?”

People continued to trickle in and take their seats. At a nearby table, functionaries from the United Electrical Works lucky enough to get less than five years took their seats, also getting ready for a meeting. 

“Well,” Kosten said once they were all there, bar Dime from Accounting who had to be at his support group for recovering drug addicts. “Let’s get started, now that we’re all here. Except for Dime, that is.” Dime had been a functioning addict from years, moving from morphling to heroin during the Rebellion, but that had come to an end under the jurisdiction of Warden Vance, who had overseen the jail they had all been held in. Since he had only agreed to do good things for them when presented with a scientific study proving that it would decrease the risk of suicide, Dime had been put through hell, barely recovering in time to give testimony.

Diana looked around the table. It was just like a meeting before the Rebellion, though with no technology. The faces were the same as before. She had known them all for years, even if seeing them without makeup and body mods (the former - thanks to prison regulations, the latter - thanks to Warden Vance) and in grey prison outfits was still odd. There was Kosten, their CEO, who had always been the friendly sort of boss. Diana was the deputy head of sales, and she sat next to Marner, the head of sales who tended to push most of his work onto her. Ray, who oversaw all of construction, sat between Dawker and Jones, who were in charge of Three and One respectively. Coldstream, in charge of Capitol construction, sat next to them. There was also Milner from Finances, Arche from Legal, Inn the CFO, her deputy Miller. Dazer from Personnel, Joza the head of rubber plants, Grenner, his deputy, and Choo, from chemicals. They, and many others, had all been put on trial for doing their jobs and given sentences from time served to life. Others had been acquitted, but they had been much lower-level individuals.

“Kushel called me yesterday,” Joza said. “Asked me what I think about the pace of construction.” He waved a report in the air and tossed it onto the table. “What does Finances think of all this?”

Milner picked up the report. “This, on top of the repairs in Three?” she asked incredulously, reading the last page. “The budget will crack! Kushel told me it’s on the way there!” Heads turned in their direction.

“Oh, so it wouldn’t have cracked for Kushel’s attempted bribes, but it will now?” Kosten asked, studying a spreadsheet. “He needs to make up his mind. Either we take the risk, or we don’t. This sort of middle ground will lead to ruin. Just look at this!” She shoved the spreadsheet under Joza’s nose. 

Coldstream leaned over to see. “Where did you get that from?” she asked, pointing at a number.

“I think I had it somewhere here.” They proceeded to dig through a heap of files and binders. 

Close by, someone lost badly at cards, but their complaints were cut short by a CO ordering them to be quiet.

“How are things?” Marner asked. Without a word, Diana passed him the most recent update on the situation. “Well,” he said blankly. “At least it’s going up.”

“Going up by five percent, while our expenses are twice that because of the reconstruction.” Diana rubbed at her forehead. “I feel like I’m on some sort of demented roller coaster.”

“At least we have good news from Twelve.”

“We do?” Diana asked, surprised. 

“We do. An independent medecine plant wants to buy some of our products.”

Diana took the offered sheet of paper. “This is not worth it at all,” she said. “The competition?” That was the only reason she could think of for such an insultingly low offer.

“They’re willing to pay a bit extra because they trust us.”

Calling it ‘a bit’ was an overstatement. Before, nobody would have dared to short-charge them like that, but now, firms were popping up all over the place and competing with each other, driving prices into the ground. “If this is how they’re going to pay us, we’ll have to ditch the rubber entirely. Jackson and Voorhees have that mostly divvied up, but we’ve got the advantage in chemicals.” Diana looked to Kosten to see how she would react, but the CEO simply wrote something down in her thick notebook and went back to perusing a document.

“That’s too drastic a step!” Joza exclaimed. “We’re still turning a profit there.”

Inn did not agree. “We’re stagnating there, but the pharmaceuticals and dyestuffs are selling like hotcakes. If it comes to it, we might have to focus on that.”

“I don’t see how Kushel could be upset by further growth in the next quarter,” Diana agreed. “Especially since reconstruction isn’t even over yet. If we get that deal-”

“That’s still up in the air,” Kosten warned, still taking notes. “Though another steady client will be welcome after this jumping back and forth. Now, what are the numbers from chemicals?” 

Choo sat up and began to read from his report.

* * *

“That wasn’t too bad,” Ray said as they queued for dinner.

Diana’s head still spun from all the work she had to do. Collating so many reports and analyzing them had always been difficult, but now she only got them in spurts, and needed to work overtime to get them delivered to Kushel and Tolom, who officially had her position but in reality had been promoted three levels above his competency. “Yeah,” she said, watching lentil stew be ladled onto her tray. In her opinion, the food wasn’t even mediocre, but all of the old inmates said it was great, so she kept her opinion to herself. “That union in One is really messing things up, isn’t it?”

“What d’you have against unions?” the woman in front of her asked.

“Nothing. It’s just throwing off our calculations.” Thanks to the explosion in union activity, they often found themselves unable to act decisively, having to instead pander to their workers.

The woman looked at her disdainfully and marched off to her table. Ray looked mournfully at the canned fruits in her tray. The two of them grabbed a fork each and sat down. Lentil stew, canned fruits, a cube of soy, a slice of bread with peanut butter, and water. Once, they had had the finest catering after meetings, but this was what they were stuck with now.

The UCR women had their own table, right next to the UEW crew and against the wall. Behind them were the propagandists, and in front - the common criminals from a neighbourhood Diana had only found out existed upon arrival to prison. All of the so-called Games criminals were supposed to be gathered in the prison, but many had fallen through the cracks, most noticeably Irma Slice, former deputy Minister of Information. Diana was glad about that. The last thing she needed was to have those sorts of people around. It was bad enough with the regular propagandists.

Diana dug into her stew. “It’s great,” she lied for the benefit of the table in front of theirs. 

“I like the fruit,” Coldstream said, holding up a piece of an unidentifiable fruit. “It’s sweet.” She ate it in one bite. “I need a vacation,” she sighed. “It’s like none of my subordinates can find their ass with a compass when they’re the ones with the Web.”

Inn nodded glumly. “I’m not even employed, and I’m working harder than I ever did. And I don’t want to think about how much money I’m spending on calls.” One call a week was free, but after that, they had to pay. Kushel coughed up the money, of course, as without them, the UCR would have gone bankrupt a long time ago, but it still stung.

“Buy a burner and bribe the guards to look the other way,” Coldstream suggested sarcastically. 

“The budget will crack,” Inn fired back in the same tone. “Didn’t you hear?”

“I thought it won’t crack when it comes to bribes.”

Kosten spread peanut butter on her bread with her fork. “You are aware that if the CO over there doesn’t understand sarcasm, that won’t end well for us?”

Diana looked over to the CO, who winked.

* * *

_Five years later_

Diana watched her PO poke around her apartment, tapping her foot impatiently. The weekly inspections always seemed to happen at the worst time, but that was a small price to pay for being able to sleep in her own bed, wash in privacy, and actually go to work like a normal person and be able to use a computer.

“You know you won’t find anything,” Diana sighed. “You never do.” She had been out on probation for half a year now, and the PO had never had a single thing to complain about. Half a year more, and she would be free of this nonsense.

“It’s a formality. Like the samples.” For some reason, Diana had to regularly provide urine samples, even though she had never used drugs in her life. “Do you have a meeting or something? It’s a Saturday.”

“At my level, there’s no such thing as a weekend,” Diana said darkly. She pulled up her left sock, so that the anklet didn’t chafe her skin. She was sick and tired of having it constantly be attached to her.

The PO finished turning everything upside-down. “Looks good to me,” she said. “If you want, I can give you a ride.”

Diana imagined how that would look, but then again, the reason the meeting was happening on a Saturday morning in the first place was because half of them had PO visits and court-ordered support groups for recovering addicts to worry about. Diana’s parents still had no idea what to think of it all. She visited them every week, but they never discussed her imprisonment, and neither did her siblings (except her wastrel youngest sister, who had become the only family member she could be fully open with, much to the surprise of both of them). 

Even though there certainly was no shortage of people in her position, and even though she had been wrongly convicted, people of their class didn’t like to talk about being in trouble with the law. Diana had her old job back, and that was all that mattered to them. The rest was too shameful to even think about.

“Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”

They got dressed and left the apartment. She’d clean up when she got home. The neighbours looked down, pretending not to see the PO. It was strange how people danced around the topic. Diana knew she had nothing to be ashamed of, but everyone was still afraid of the word ‘prison’, to speak nothing of phrases such as ‘out on probation’, ‘tracking anklet’, ‘court-ordered anything’ that hinted at a deeper familiarity with the justice system. It was humiliating to have her neighbours ignore her as if she was an empty space, but she had gotten used to it over the months.

The car ride took about as much time as the subway, but it did mean she didn’t have to worry about switching trains. Diana watched the urban scenery float by. There was something strangely beautiful about it. Before her imprisonment, she had never thought a city could be beautiful, but it was. The skyscrapers pierced the sky, as if laughing in the face of gravity. Seemingly ephemeral constructions of glass and steel, and yet so durable. Eclectic little buildings in a variety of styles, each one a reflection of whoever had commissioned it. Soup shops and hot-dog stands, people rushing around on errands or simply enjoying the morning.

Diana decided to go for a walk in the afternoon. It was a bit chilly, but that was what warm clothes were for.

“We’re here,” the PO said, pulling up to the curb. “Have a good week!”

“You, too,” Diana said, climbing out of the car. Eyes slid off her like water on a hydrophobic surface as passerby deliberately ignored her. The car sped off. Diana realized her anklet was showing, and crouched down to adjust her trousers leg. Then, she went inside. She took the elevator to the right floor and headed towards the conference room where, as luck would have it, she was first other than Kushel. She needn’t have rushed so much.

“Good day,” he said. “I hope the inspection didn’t take too long.”

Diana shook her head, sitting down. “How is Kosten?”

“Gave me the quarterly report just now. Seems we’re doing fine.” He scrolled through something on his computer. By now, the interim CEO had become quite comfortable with his high post, but he still longed for Kosten’s return.

“That’s good.” Diana had, of course, known how things were going in sales, but trying to get coherent information from the others was an ordeal now that they weren’t cheek by jowl around the clock. “Is that donuts?” she realized, noticing the large box on the table for the first time.

Kushel nodded. “It’s in honour of Ray’s return.” Ray had been released after serving her entire sentence just days ago. They had met up for a quick bite, but nothing more substantial since then. “This will be a welcome-back sort of celebration, as well as a normal meeting.” He drank from a giant coffee cup.

“You’re holding a quarterly meeting in honour of Ray’s return from prison?” Diana asked, wondering what Ray would think of that.

“Why not?” Kushel asked, taking another sip of his coffee. He glanced at his watch. “We’ve still got fifteen minutes,” he said. “Any interesting news? How are your parents? Your siblings? How’s your PO doing?”

Diana chuckled. “My family is fine, and so is my PO.”

At that moment, Ray walked into the room, and Kushel leapt up to shake her hand. “I can’t thank you enough for all the hard work you did,” he said, overflowing with praise. “In fact, I’m going to give you a bonus.” He had done that with Diana as well. 

“Thank you, sir,” Ray said demurely.

“Now, sit down, sit down! Grab a donut. Have some coffee.” Diana wondered if she should also grab a cup. “Are you excited for your first real meeting in years?”

Ray laughed, pouring some coffee into a cup. “Where the CEO is, that’s where the real meeting is,” she said, putting her bag onto a chair.

“Exactly,” Diana agreed as Kushel laughed. Soon enough, they would all be back, though, and the UCR would run as if nothing had ever happened.

**Author's Note:**

> As you can imagine, Diana isn’t the most reliable of narrators. She herself, and her fellow industrialists, were complicit in horrific crimes, Warden Vance was more caring than one would expect someone in his position to be, and there is nothing wrong with the food. She is, however, right to be scared by the prospect of Fisher being allowed within ten metres of a patient.
> 
> If you were amused by the mental image of the top of a corporation’s hierarchy holding a meeting in prison, I would suggest learning about Nazi industrialists, who practically ran their corporations from inside the prison where they were held after the war (though I’m sure that things were nowhere near as zany in Landsberg as they are in Townhome). That story doesn’t have a happy ending, though - they were all released by 1951, got their jobs back, and lived happily ever after. At least my crew served their time, more or less, though getting remorse out of them would be like wringing water from a stone.
> 
> Those of you who know Russian may have recognized the line about the budget cracking. It was indeed inspired by Serguey Semyonovich's famous proclamation.


End file.
